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"Creem" Magazine Interview

Date range assessed by the fact that it was not yet June 1971 (“the Empire State Building and Europe, which the group will see in June”)

(A little flashback for you. Here's CREEM's first Jackson Five cover story--a full interview with the family done only one week prior to their move to Encino, where they reside to this day.

At CREEM, this cover story has special significance for us--it was the first glossy cover the magazine ever bore and was the very first to receive full national distribution. That cover, reproduced elsewhere in this magazine, was just one sign that the Jacksons' fame was broadening in scope and magnitude. The fact that you're holding this CREEM Close-Up in your hands is another.)

It was January, 1970, snowy and blowy in New York, and "I Want You Back" was on the jukebox at Max's. It sounded like a Supremes' song at first, but not quite, the lead voice being too high and thin. I went and checked the jukebox, G-9 or whatever, read "JACKSON FIVE--MOTOWN", and said, "Wow! Diana Ross has found a sound-alike group from Jackson, Miss. and put them through the Motown wringer. Come to think of it, that screws up my whole musical categorization system inside my head, because suddenly there is another group in the Supremes' pigeonhole that isn't the Supremes at all, which means the Supremes' sound isn't unique, in fact most likely it is endlessly duplicable. Berry Gordy probably has ten, fifteen Supremes' sounding groups around waiting in line--Diana was just luckier or prettier than the others, and the whole music business is just a lot of hype."

The above period of depression lasted some weeks, until the J-Five had their second hit and they started getting all the publicity. Their album came out and then they got their own pigeonhole in my head--right next to Diana Ross to be sure but that made it all right, once I realized the J-Five were really good and that they had a personality of their own, apart from Diana Ross, and that they had worked every hard to get good, and it wasn't all as easy as it seemed at first. But still, as the sub-teen black girls around the country went insane and kept ripping Jermaine's shirt and fainting in droves (16, like dominoes, in Cincinnati) and the group had to get smuggled out of auditoriums (Detroit, Cobo) and live in a fortress and go to a private school in Encino for special persons, the whole phenomenon kept bothering me because they were, after all, just five kids but kids, and their sound was pure Motown super-slick production--nothing new or different. The songs themselves were only average, for the most part, as well, and I got depressed again and added the whole scene to evidence I have been gathering lately which will conclusively prove we have all been crazy for some time.

First of all, they really are the Jackson Twelve--counting their parents, Joe and Katherine, their cousins, Johnny Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer, who play drums and piano, respectively, behind the group, little brother Randy, eight, who's getting ready to join the group, and two sisters, persona non grata, elder sister Maureen having escaped to Kentucky. They all live together in a 12-room, massive, stucco-modern place in Beverly Hills, up in the hills, off Coldwater Canyon, a place that must've been designed as a motel. Up on stilts, so you can drive right under the house and park in a lot that would hold 15 cars easy. Massive, blank, and square, but only six bedrooms, so that Michael, cultural hero that he is, is forced to triple up with Randy and Marlon, 14, and the other brothers are forced to share, too.

The Jackson Motel wraps itself endlessly around a pool, walkways, plants, growing all around, there's a basketball half-court, an archery range, and inside, to complete the image of oe of your better motels, a pool table in the middle of the living room, and a den that is a cross between a motel lobby and the lobby of a Sunset Blvd. record company, walls plastered with platinum records from RIAA and various other trophies the boys've picked up--with, for furniture, a bar, a stereo with big speakers, leatherette couches.

The place is almost totally impersonal, the strongest personality around being without a doubt Lobo, the German Shepherd bitch trained to eat anything that's black, squeaky, and carrying an autograph book. Which causes the family's closest friends to wait outside in their cars in the parking lot and call up to the window, "Is Lobo OK?" and wait for an indication that a couple of kids are holding her down, before even venturing to open the car door. THen Lobo is allowed to gush out the back door, a tornado of bristles and snarls, in a (hopefully) vain attempt to race under the motel, past the check-in window, and up the front steps in time to rip the pants off whoever is going to the front door.

Lobo lends dash to the place, which is otherwise mostly wall-to-wall shag, plastic furniture and trophies. The kids wander among it all, not exactly at home--"Livin' up on this big [hill?] is weird", concedes Jermaine, "the nearest store is five miles away"--but definitely in control of the situation. Michael, with the loveliest, fullest, 12-year-old Afro you'll hope to see, has the history of the group down pat: "We all started singing together after Tito (17, second oldest) started messin' with Dad's guitar and singin' with the radio. It was Tito who decided we should form a group, and we did, and we practiced a lot, and then we started entering talent shows, and we won every one we entered, and then we did this benefit (Feb. '69) for the Mayor [Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana--they're not from Mississippi after all) and Diana Ross was in the audience and afterwards we were in the dressin' room and Diana Ross knocked on the door and she brought us to Detroit and that was it." He was taken aback when you question him beyond this, because that is as far as his training takes him, but he responds well enough.

Yes, Mother Katherine had played clarinet in high school, but she wasn't much of a musical influence. Father Joe, who also sports a natural and who as a youth had sung and played guitar with a local group called the Falcons, set more of an example. The whole family, Maureen (20) on piano, would sit around the house through the '60s and sing on weekends Joe providing the chords on guitar. Tito got the idea they should be a formal group when Michael was only six; then come the talent contests, but, more to the point, a recording contract with Steeltown, a local label, and performing trips to Chicago, Arizona, New York, and Boston. At first they did songs like the Tempts' "I Wish It Would Rain" and "My Girl", Smokey's "Going to A-Go-Go" ("Smokey's always been one of our favorites", says Michael). "Marlon was wearing diapers when he got started", recalls Tito, at 17 the tough guy of the bunch, the one who wears the snap-brim gold hat. "Michael joined soon's he could hit a note, Marlon took a little longer."

"We did every hit on the r'n'b chart", says Jermaine. Tito was playing guitar (at first, his father's, later his own) and Jermaine learned bass--on Tito's guitar at first, there being no money for a real bass. Then came the bass amps and speaker, and there wasn't enough money left to buy any more instruments, so the cousins were enlisted, more for their set of drums and their piano than for their musical statements. They played the Apollo when Michael was only seven. They still remember doing a live hour show in Arizona, though they forget the town (Winslow). Mike, doing pushups on the shag, says he remembers playing the Regal in Chicago, the Uptown in Philly, the Capitol (Chicago) and also Boston someplace.

The family made most of these trips in their Volkswagen bus, with a second van for equipment, Joe driving the VW, a friend driving the equipment van. The kids just remember all the snow, and their weekends and school holidays being spent in motels and strange arenas. But it was exciting. "We did shows with the Tempts, with Smokey", says Jermaine. "We even had a hit of our own, 'Big Boy'".

"Who wrote it?"

"We all did, all five of us", says Jermaine.

They had played the Apollo with the Stairsteps, knew them pretty well, played basketball with them passing through Chicago, before Diana Ross ever come along. "The Stairsteps were always one of our favorite groups", says Jermaine. In fact, if Buddah Records hadn't been quicker than Motown, this story might be about the Stairsteps, including only a mention of Buddha's family act, the Jackson Five.

Jermaine's hero was Bobby Taylor (of Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers) who, it turned out, was to produce the group's first Motown album.

"I was eight when it all got started", Marlon recalls. "It was a lot of work. We practiced five hours a day." (The other brothers corroborates this.) Marlon, who has a solo on "I'll Be There", doesn't play on instrument, but then he's only 14. He's a valid version of Michael. "I don't go out on dates yet", he says, but he looks normal enough and with luck he'll be alright. He likes to muse on the hard times he's been through. "We would do a show somewhere Sunday night, we'd get home at three in the morning, then we'd have to get up at eight to go to school. That was rough." Jackie, the eldest at 19 and a somewhat philosophical lad, cuts in: "You work that hard every day, you think about that phone call comin', every day, you know it's just gotta come sooner or later." All the brothers nod solemn agreement.

As they say, once the phone call came, in the form of Diana Ross's body in their dressing room, the rest was musical history: four hit singles in 1970, two more already this year, four albums, and all ten of the releases hitting platinum (two million copies of a single, one million album copies) as opposed to mere gold--various television appearances, booking of an animated cartoon series on television (ABC release date Sept. 11). All of it history.

The kids remain relatively practical about it all. Tito says he has a Porsche, but he doesn't. Jackie, it is true, had just purchased a car, but at 19, that's certainly not rushing it. And it's only a [unintelligible] ("240-C", as Marlon is quick to interject), nothing fancy. "We have to make our beds", says Michael. "We don't need a maid here", as if this were very significant. "We do our chores." They do dishes by hand, despite the anomaly of a dishwasher.

Marlon is really grooving on the whole thing: "If I was back in Gary", he points out, "I wouldn't see all this stuff." On closer questioning, he says stuff refers especially to the Empire State Building and Europe, which the group will see in June when they go to London to tape their own special, then do a few concerts (Following that, in the summer, another national tour.)

"We don't have any gold records", moans Jackie. Pause, to let his visitor begin to show surprise, then "They're all platinum! Ha-Ha!" It's one of their favorite jokes.

They also got to drop in on Coretta King, and with her visit Dr. King's grave in Atlanta. Last year they were named Mot Promising Vocal Group in Japan (where bubblegum regns supreme little Jimmy Osmond, seven, not even old enough to be included in the Osmond Brothers, has a hit single there). Billboard named them Top Singles Recording Artist for 1970, and the NAACP gave them its "Image Award" for '70, as well.

Now they're working on their television series, first four segments in the can, doing more all the time. Motown Productions is making the series, in partnership with Rankin and Bass, New York animators, and ABC will release it. It is, essentially, a black version of the Beatles' Sunday morning cartoons, or the Archies. First episode, naturally, is a fantasy based on how Diana Ross discovered the group. Theme song is a medley of J-Five hits. "Sharp man", says Jackie, "things are comin' on strong." (Jermaine and Jackie are, compared to Tito, who like the thug image, ethereal and wear the floppy brim-all-around felt hats so popular just now.)

They really are just getting started. Michael plays drums, is learning piano. Remembering the tantrum I threw at my first and last piano lesson, I commiserate, but Michael says, "It's not hard. You just have to put your mind to what you're doin', that's all there is to it." Remembering Lobo, I quell an urge to cuff the kid, and make preparations to leave.

Marlon tells me in his soft, child-voice that he's a dancer; Jermaine adds that Marlon is known around the motel as Las Vegas, because of his prowess with cords. It turns out, further, that Jermaine is a poet and that he and Michael (Michael does everything) draw pictures of people. Tito: "Michael's pretty good, too at drawing people."

Jackie points out the thing about how 16 girls fainted in Cincinnati when Jermaine was doing his solo in "Mama I Found A Girl", the part where he sings, "Won't you take me with you?" The girls broke out in sweat and screamed, "Yes", and then keeled over.

I ask Michael if his power-of-positive thinking approach applies to their future--will they be another Mills Brothers, another Miracles, on down the road, always together?

"Yeah, as long as you keep those records comin' out."

Sagacious nods all round the motel lobby, and Jermaine, the restless one, adds "We wanna do other things, too, movies and all, maybe form a corporation of our own." Then he figuratively claps his hand over his mouth, because Bob Jones of Motown is wondering what he means.

Mrs. Jackson, very neat with her short, straightened hair, and her neat green volley pantsuit (his family is moving next week to Encino, in the Valley) is adamant that the group didn't start because of Joe, who at the time was a crane operator for Island Steel. "They just started because of their love for it, we all loved music. Sometimes I had to see 'em rehearsing, other sometimes Joe did, but mostly they just rehearsed on their own."

If the family had had more money, ironically, they might never have made it. Michael was a good drummer at age eight, and if the family could have afforded the traps, Michael's shot at singing lead would have been lost behind drums.

It's remarkable that they're as big as they are considering that their concert and recording schedules have to be worked around school and homework. THe Buckley School (in Encino, where all five of them go) makes allowances, and a social-worker-tutor travels with the boys wherever they go, but it still is a handicap. Then again, the boys aren't subject to the pressure of traveling grownups--you know, wasting time with groupies on the road, migraine headaches, creaking bones, drugs, and alcohol. Instead, they unwind nightly with pillow fights and card games, Scrabble and Monopoly, and two or three barrels of chicken. They don't have any billing hassles like older groups do, either. Wherever they go, their show is called the Jackson Five Show, and that's it--no mention is made of the Commodores, the band of black college kids from Mobile, or of Yvonne Fair, late of the James Brown Road Company, a blues singer. They like the traveling, look forward to it, and Motown, smooth and silent, takes care of everything.

Motown protects them, lets them grow up uncomplicated. They were still the same for their homecoming to Gary in January, got doted on by innumerable cousins, aunts, and uncles at a major party in the basement of a cousin's house just like they did right after the affair with Mayor Hatcher, in 1969. Everybody brought cake and chicken, the whole bit.

They are protected from their fans. True, girls keep discovering the address of J-Five, and appear periodically in the parking lot below. Generally, they are given a stay of execution, Lobo is closeted and girls are allowed inside. "Sometimes", says Katherine, "I let 'em stay for dinner." The fan mail rolls in in huge quantities, most to Michael and Jermaine.

Motown has responded to the unprecedented response by hiring Fred Rice, a specialist in the franchising business--selling products plastered with the names and faces of teen heroes. Rice has done this for the Beatles in the U.S., and for the Monkees, with notable success, and as an unbiased professional, he says, "This is the first time in my 24 years in the business that we've had anything like this. I call 'em the black Beatles", not an all together flattering description, but nonetheless apt.

"They're heroes, it's unbelievable... Of course, we tested the market with paper first. Poster and decal stickers with pictures of the kids, and if they go, then you do the toys, clothes, buttons, the hard stuff. We're just now getting out the clothes, and we're negotiating for a Jackson Five watch.

"All their stuff has their logo on it, J-5 with a heart growing out of the bottom of it, and some of 'em have a heart in a circle, that means soul... and I'm putting out the Jackson Five magazine, we call it TcB, that'll come out quarterly, one out so far, has all their vital statistics, color pictures, song lyrics... we're doing everything. The kids just grab this subteen market, like the 12-13 year old girl, she just flips over Jermaine and that Michael's coming along, it's a whole subteen adoration... that used to come in the movies, now it's records, because movies are too expensive a way to develop new young talent, music is the most economical way to do it..."

Fred is also about to release, with Motown, a record called Jackson Five Rapping, no music, just the five of them talking about themselves.

When the kids go to the movies, a plainclothes security man takes the place of Lobo. Security is heavy at concerts, as well. Once the rush was so frantic, a cop closed a door on Jermaine, thinking it was a fox--and that hurt Jermaine's foot. Other times, Jermaine's shirt has suffered. The ids get only five dollars a week, so that means a lot (actually, the older three get more than that now, undisclosed amounts). They perform now in beautiful, wild outfits by Boyd Clapton, some guy who did the striking Fifth Dimension costumes, a Hollywood designer.

Jackie plans to go to college in the fall; the others plan to eventually. They, especially Michael, receive lots of birthday presents, mostly rings and bracelets with the fan's and the singer's name on them. Also socks, shoes, and basketballs. Michael has a little motorcycle.

Now, when they hit the various towns, the girl there who sent the best letter to a member of the group gets to meet them, in what they call the "Mama's Pearl Contest". A little girl in Dayton who got to meet Michael and Marlon in their hotel room just sat there shivering. Couldn't say one word. Not even "hi", much less her prepared questions. The group causes apoplexy. "In Detroit", recalls Jackie, "we had to jump off a plane without waiting for the ladder, they were comin' so fast

"But we've gotten keys to all the cities", he adds. "We're honorary citizens of Atlanta, we're Kentucky colonels..."

The songs, of course, are not theirs but are mostly products of "that Motown Magic", as Bob Jones puts it, specifically the Corporation, which means Motown personnel, generally Berry Gordy, Jr., Alphonso Mizell, Freddie Perren and Deke Richards--with, on some songs, the help of Hal Davis, Bob West, and Willie Hutch. Just Motown-connected people: Deke Richards, for instance, produced the Supremes' hit "Love Child" and "I Can't Dance to the Music They're Playing" by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas. But more and more, says Jermaine, the Five want to write their own stuff. "We're gettin' our stuff together now", he says.

It's too chilly to swim just now, so after a little basketball, the kids settle down t a game of pool in the living room. Randy, too young to reach the table, looking silly in the fireplace. "I'm good on my trampoline", Michael remarks, "and I'm good at pool."

"Not as good as me", says Jermaine. Michael, ever practical, reminds Jermaine who is winning the game.

Back home in Gary, says Tito, "We all played Little League and we all hit home runs during the Series. We were always the best at everything." It doesn't sound phony, no more than the truth.

Jackie points out, in case the white reporter is thinking things about luck and natural rhythm, "I had a baseball contract all sewed up if the music thing didn't work out. And college scholarship for basketball." They're even perversely proud of Lobo, who sits just outside the back door, slobbering menacingly through the panes, a reminder that outside Jackson Morel there is a harsher world: "That dog", says Jackie, "you turn your back on her and she jumps right on your back. Jumped on Tony Jones (another man from Motown, no relation to Bob) last week, we pulled her off just in time..."

When I got home intact, the boys having hauled Lobo inside at the crucial point in my dash to the car, I read the J-Five Fan Magazinem and noticed among all the statistics (TcB's J-Five Bad Quiz!) and color pix, a part about Lobo: "The Jacksons are very devoted to animals. They have a large German Shepherd that's a pal to everyone in the entire family. He's also a worker for them. He guards their large home from potential robbers or just ambitious fans. They'd love to take their dog on the road with them, but he has to stay behind to help guard family members who are left behind..."